Document management systems are known that permit multiple users to store and retrieve electronic documents on a closed client/server architecture network, such as a local area network or wide area network. These previously known document management systems, such as DOCSFusion, available from PCDOCS, Inc., Toronto, Ontario, Canada and EDMS 98, available from Documentum, Inc., Pleasanton, Calif., require the presence of a client application on each node of the network that is to access and manipulate files.
With the recent rapid expansion of the Internet, the opportunity for collaborative efforts has increased many fold, as colleagues scattered around the world can rapidly transmit files for review and revision using electronic mail facilities. While electronic mail systems are useful for transmitting relatively small files on the Internet, however, large documents often are too large to be handled by typical message transfer systems, and can overburden a network. Large documents also may exceed the available storage at a recipient's site, thus preventing a recipient from storing a received document. Electronic mail systems used on open systems, such as the Internet, also do not generally address security concerns, or permit a transmission to be tracked, as is possible with a physical document delivery service (e.g., courier).
Smith U.S. Pat. No. 5,790,790 describes an Internet electronic document delivery system, wherein an e-mail message contains a direct reference (i.e., a Uniform Resource Locator or "URL") to an electronic document stored on a server. When a recipient receives the e-mail message, the direct reference is used to access the document. A drawback of the system described in that patent, is that the sending computer must include a specialized client application for interacting with the server. The system described in that patent also lacks the kinds of transaction logging and accounting functions needed to provide a useful document management system.
The POSTA.RTM. system, offered by Tumbleweed Software Corporation, Redwood City, Calif., overcomes some of the drawbacks of the system described in the foregoing patent. For example, the POSTA.RTM. system eliminates the need for specialized client software for basic document delivery operations, and permits the use of a previously known web browser, such as Internet Explorer 4.0.RTM., available from Microsoft Corp., Redmond, Wash., or Netscape Navigator.RTM., Netscape Corporation, Mountain View, Calif. That commercial system also eliminates use of the direct reference in the e-mail message, instead providing a URL for a webpage that provides the user with several options for document delivery. The system provides none of the capabilities normally associated with a document management system.
Higley U.S. Pat. No. 5,790,793, like the foregoing Smith patent, also describes an Internet electronic document delivery system wherein an e-mail message includes a URL reference to a document stored in a server. This system described in this patent also requires the use of a specialized client application, and is limited to an electronic document delivery service.
While it is known in the art to use an Internet web browser to download an electronic document from a website, using, for example, Hyper Text Transfer Protocol ("HTTP") or File Transfer Protocol ("FTP"), there currently do not exist document management systems that permit such a file to be modified by a user, and uploaded to the system for further collaborative retrieval and modification by others.
It is also known in the art to use access tokens as a security feature in computer systems, i.e., to provide information and assurances about the identity of a user and to accordingly restrict a user's access to a resource (data that the user is trying to access, e.g., a document, a message, etc.). Moreover, different types of access tokens are also known in the art, e.g., private URLs (URLs which contain a reference to the identity of the user who is authorized to access the URL) are a type of URL which contains an access token, user information and resource information (identifiable information on the data that the user is trying to access). The access token in a private URL is often a string generated from information on the user and/or resource. For security purposes, it would be desirable to generate access tokens that are not derived from any information on the user and/or resource. However, there currently does not exist a system, which provides for the construction of URLs comprising access tokens that are not derived from user or resource information, and the methods of using such access tokens in an Internet-based document management system to control a user's access to the various document management services.
In view of the foregoing, it would be desirable to provide a document management system and methods that permit electronic documents to be made available for use on open systems, such as the Internet, and to be accessed using a previously known web browser--without the need for a specialized client application.
It also would be desirable to provide an Internet-based document management system and methods that permit users to access a plurality of services supported by a common Internet-based database, including document storage, collaborative file sharing and workflow, document delivery and document distribution.
It further would be desirable to provide an Internet-based document management system and methods that permit users to selectively or automatically filter electronic documents during storage to and/or retrieval from, an Internet-based storage site.
It still further would be desirable to provide an Internet-based document management system and methods that permit users to collaboratively store, retrieve, modify and then return an electronic document to an Internet-based storage site.
It yet further would be desirable to provide an Internet-based document management system and methods that enable the transaction logging and accounting functions needed for multi-user collaborative electronic document manipulation, for example, so that revisions to a document may be tracked.
It also would be desirable to provide an Internet-based document management system and methods that enable tracking of transactions performed on a document for billing purposes, and which provide needed access-control protocols, for example, so that specific users' privileges with respect to a document may be defined.
It further would be desirable to provide a system for the construction and validation of access tokens for use in an Internet-based document management system, where the access tokens are not derived from user or resource information and can be used to control access to the services offered by the document management system.